Big news regarding FTC action against T-Mobile

Using the screaming headline “FTC Alleges T-Mobile Crammed Bogus Charges onto Customers’ Phone Bills. T-Mobile Was Aware For Years that Charges Were Not Authorized by its Customers” the FTC lets us know that it is seeking an order permanently prevent T-Mobile from engaging in mobile cramming and to obtain refunds for consumers and disgorgement of T-Mobile’s ill-gotten gains T-Mobile.

When we sit down and take a close look at the article we can see why the FTC is taking a hard line: refund rates of up to 40 percent in a single month, combined with billing practices that made it difficult for consumers to detect that they were being charged or by whom, including bills with abbrevations such as “8888906150BrnStorm23918,” that did not explain that a charge was for a recurring third-party subscription, and pre-pay users who never get bills at all and therefore have no way of finding out about the charges.